On mother's day, I never got a mother's day greeting from my father.  He would always say, in a cold sarcastic voice "Why would I get you anything?  You're not my mother!" 

After several years of this, I thought  how it would have been justified to say to him - "So I didn't get you anything for Father's day because you don't even have one inkling of an idea of what it means to be a father." I am glad I never said it, but it doesn't mean the for many years, this was a true statement. 

I learned the type of parent I did not want to be by looking back at my childhood and looking at what my dad did -- drink, beat my mother, wind up in jail.

My dad got better after finding AA, but he was still never really a dad to me.  I would come to lean that he was a father figure to many people in the program, but I didn't need saving.  I wasn't an alcoholic and I think there was little he felt he could offer me.

Still, this being the first father's day without him, I find myself missing one thing -- his ability to listen.  I would call, I would talk, and he would listen.  I miss that.  I miss you daddy. 

I remember, shortly after my dad died, I was crying in the car.  I was shouting to my dad, and my God -- to my father and my Father.  I want to know.  I have faith, but I want to know for-sure.  After all that has happened in his life, did he make it?  I believe, but I just wish I knew for sure.  And then, on the raido came this song. 



Happy Father's day.